


Recompense

by bemusedlybespectacled (ardentintoxication)



Series: Definition [1]
Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Community: jakink, Corporal Punishment, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, M/M, Masochism, Men Being Stoic About Their Pain, Multi, Pain, Threesome - F/M/M, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-16 07:40:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3479912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardentintoxication/pseuds/bemusedlybespectacled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>noun:<br/>1. compensation or reward given for loss or harm suffered or effort made.<br/>2. (archaic) restitution made or punishment inflicted for a wrong or injury.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recompense

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for [this prompt](http://jakink.dreamwidth.org/724.html?thread=66260#cmt66260) at the kink meme. This is _not_ a part of the "i wanna be your dog" 'verse for reasons that will soon become clear.
> 
> Special thanks to the folks at Fetlife who linked me to some resources on what whipping looks and feels like, because I've only ever seen whipping done [to pasta](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3OUUOzxqjY&t=420), not to people. I did quite a lot of research on this, AND YET (and this is a very big AND YET) do not take this as anything resembling accuracy, because I have never thrown a whip nor been on the receiving end of one and so cannot draw from my own experiences. What happens in this fic is INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS in real life, and should only be done by people who know what they're doing.

After blowing up part of Jupiter (the planet, not the person) and being picked up by a very bewildered Diomika Tsing, Jupiter (the person, not the planet) can't go back to Earth just yet. Her family needs to be blanked for their own protection, she needs to testify as to how Balem died (and file an inheritance claim, as technical next of kin), the tax grievances she's filed against Titus and the pardons she's trying to issue to Caine and Stinger need updating, and people to help her make sense of all of this (and Caine, who's just there for emotional support) have been streaming in and out of her room for hours.

She's contemplating taking a well-earned nap when there's a knock at her door. "Come in," she says, without turning around, assuming it's Caine.

It's not. It's Stinger. He's different somehow than when she last saw him: his shoulders are curled in defensively and his eyes are downcast. He raises his head carefully, as if bracing for a blow.

"Your majesty-" Stinger starts to say, then stops. He tries again. "Your majesty, I've come to apologize."

"Caine explained it to me," Jupiter says, confused. "You just wanted to be able afford treatment for Kiza. There's nothing to fault you there. What is there to apologize for?"

"I betrayed you, your majesty," says Stinger. "If Caine hadn't been there to rescue you-"

"The way I heard it, you helped him do a lot of the rescuing."

Stinger shakes his head. "I wouldn't have if Caine hadn't gotten me to. It's not enough to repay the debt I owe you."

Jupiter lifts one eyebrow. "Then what is?"

She's not sure what she expects: an oath of undying loyalty, maybe, or something bee related. She does not expect him to press a whip into her hand and say, "I need you to punish me."

"What?" Her first instinct is to drop it in revulsion - she only doesn't because Stinger holds it in place. She knows what he's asking for, but even the thought disgusts her. "I can't  _do_ that, I can't-"

"Please, your majesty," Stinger says. "I know what I have done is unforgivable, but-"

"No, you don't understand. I've already forgiven you. Mostly. This would just be..." She looks at the whip in her hand and makes a face. "Overkill."

"Not for me, majesty," he says. "I have to, if- _I have to do this_." He struggles for composure and fails, looking stricken.

Jupiter bites her lip, thinking. "Caine," she says at last. "Let me at least talk to Caine about this."

"As your majesty wishes," says Stinger. "If your majesty would look there-" he points to a panel on the wall "-that button can contact any person onboard."

"Thank you," she says, walking over to it. She presses the small silver button.

"Please name the call recipient," says a smooth female voice.

"Uh, Caine," says Jupiter. "Caine Wise."

"Connecting," the voice says. Caine's soft rasp comes through the speaker almost immediately.

"Your majesty?"

"Caine," Jupiter says with relief. "Can you come up to where I am? I need to talk to you about something, it's to do with Stinger."

"On my way, your majesty," Caine says.

It's a very awkward few minutes until he arrives. Jupiter spends the time looking out the window at the Earth and stars and trying not to panic. When Caine does come, he looks at Stinger, at Jupiter, at the whip in her hand, and raises his eyebrows: he knows, then. He's at her side in an instant, bowing to her almost as an afterthought.

"Your majesty sent for me?"

"I did." She turns to Stinger. "If I could speak to him alone for a moment?"

"Of course, majesty," he says, exiting to the hallway and closing the sliding doors behind him.

Once he's gone, Jupiter allows herself to freak out a bit. "He wants me to whip him!"

"I thought he'd do something like this," Caine says. "He's too Old Guard even for the Legion, the idiot."

"What does that mean?"

"I mean," says Caine, "that Stinger has very particular ideas about honor and loyalty. And he can be so stubborn about it that I wouldn't be surprised if he was secretly a mule splice."

"What if I gave him his pardon right now, like, informally?" Jupiter asks, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. "As a show of forgiveness. Or some other kind of punishment, instead of this?"

"For him, it's more about forgiving himself," Caine explains. "Closure. He won't be satisfied unless what he's feeling physically matches with what he already feels emotionally. The best you can do is do what he asks, go lightly on him, and make it clear afterwards that it's the end of the matter."

Jupiter looks at the whip in her hand with distaste. "I still don't want to do it. It's awful. Like, _Ten Commandments_ kind of awful."

"Yeah, well, never accuse Stinger of having modern sensibilities," says Caine. He puts his hand on her shoulder. "I'll walk you through it. I'll even take over if you need me to."

Jupiter leans into his touch. "Thank you. I think it'll help, just you being there."

She opens the door to join Stinger in the hallway, Caine at her heels. "Caine explained why it was important," she says to Stinger. "I don't like it, but if it will make you feel better..."

"Thank you, your majesty," says Stinger, sounding genuinely relieved.

"There's a room a few levels down," says Caine. "Private, with plenty of room, near the sick bay."

Jupiter nods. "Okay."

It turns out it's some kind of gym, with a practice mat in the middle of the floor and a bunch of equipment she assumes is for exercise, even though she only recognizes half of it. One wall is empty but for a ladder-like metal structure, almost like a climbing wall, and Stinger takes his shirt off and braces himself against it, gripping the steel bars to hold himself upright. His back, she notices, is smooth and well-muscled, and she admires it for a second before remembering what she's there for and feeling ashamed of herself. She turns around and makes a few experimental practice throws.

"Uh," she says, suddenly nervous, "how many am I supposed to do?"

"Three hundred lashes is customary for treason, majesty," Stinger says without turning around.

Jupiter shakes her head, then realizes he can't see her. "No. I'll punish you, if that's what you want, but you were acting under duress. One hundred." She looks to Caine, who nods once in confirmation. "One hundred is more than enough."

"If it please your majesty."

She breathes in and out, slowly, preparing herself, then says, "Caine, could you count, please?" She lifts the whip and strikes.

She was expecting the whip to crack, but maybe she's not throwing it hard enough, because all it makes is a thumping noise. A thin red line appears on his back: a welt, not enough to bleed. He jerks, but does not cry out.  _Okay_ , Jupiter thinks. _Maybe this won't be so bad.  
_

The next few are the same, more like scratches than cuts, and she's able to develop a kind of slow rhythm where her hand just sort of moves on its own without her needing to think about it too hard. Occasionally she misses her aim, and the whip cracks just short of his back or too far to the left or right. The room is almost eerily silent, but for their breathing and the sound of the whip.

Her hand moves a little more loosely than normal, and the whip thuds hard against one shoulder blade. Stinger makes a sound in the back of his throat: there's a long, bleeding mark where the whip cut him.

 _It's okay_ , Jupiter tells herself,  _just keep going and get it over with_.

Another lash, and then another. There's blood where the cuts have crossed, where she's struck too hard, running down the muscles of his back in tiny rivulets. His skin starts to tear, his breath becomes harsher, and he shifts from his position on the wall just once, when the whip goes wide and catches his waist. She whips him again and again, until she's no longer thinking about anything but the movement of her arm and the red target in front of her. Her eyes are watering and her hand is shaking, but she forces herself to lift the lash again-

-there's a hand on her shoulder.

"Your majesty," Caine says softly. "You've done fifty. You're starting to lose focus: if you continue, you might hurt him." The  _worse_ is left unsaid, but she stops anyway. Her eyes are tearing up so badly that she can barely see. She blinks hard to clear them, then hands the whip to Caine.

"Could you-"

"It's okay," he says. "Let me just-" He takes the whip from her hand. 

Caine handles the whip like an expert, each fall of the end striking exactly where and as hard as he wants it to. He takes care to aim for places that aren't as injured, though Stinger's back is an expanse of blood and raw flesh now, the blood seeping into the waistband of his pants. Jupiter thinks,  _Maybe he should have taken his pants off_ just as Stinger makes a choked sound almost exactly like the one a man makes just before he comes, and, to her horror, she feels a tiny frisson of arousal.

Immediately she clamps down on it. This is not sexy, this is tragic. How fucked up is she to find this even the slightest bit attractive?

The whip lands in the same spot twice, one after the other, and Stinger lets out a gutteral cry, louder than before. Caine stops immediately, walks forward until he's at Stinger's side.

"You're at eighty-seven," he says. "If you plead mercy now, no one would think less of you."

Jupiter watches Stinger shake his head, whisper something that only Caine can hear.

"I'm going to stop anyway if something else happens."

Very faintly, Jupiter hears "you have to" and "that's an order."

"You don't get to give me orders anymore. I'm stopping at my discretion, and that means before one hundred if I don't think you can take it."

Another harsh whisper. Caine looks surprised.

"That's fair."

Caine backs up again and cracks the whip a few times experimentally, flicking blood off the ends. Instead of aiming for his back again, he aims lower, for Stinger's buttocks and the backs of his thighs. The whip slices through the thin cloth of his trousers, one, twice, three times, shallow strokes that don't seem to bleed as much. The next five are faster, the whip crack deafeningly loud as it strikes. The next three seem to take forever, and as Caine announces, "One hundred," Stinger loses his grip on the wall and crumples to the floor.

Jupiter is at his side in an instant, Caine only a second after her. "Get his shirt," he orders. Jupiter grabs it off the floor. Stinger is lying in a crumpled heap on his side, breath coming in deep gasps, and Caine scoops him into a fireman's carry, taking care to not touch his back.

* * *

In sick bay, Caine drops Stinger on an exam table. Stinger's chest is heaving with sobs, his eyes screwed shut, his face a mask of pain. Caine points a shelf out to Jupiter.

"Get the-" 

"Not the spray," Stinger gasps. "I need... to remember."

Caine makes a face. "I would punch you if I didn't think you'd enjoy it, you stupid masochistic bastard."

Stinger, for some reason, laughs. "Don't care. Just don't..."

Caine sighs. "Fine. Get the white salve, then," he says to Jupiter. "Top cabinet."

The label calls it Halite Purgex, and Jupiter finds it next to the bandages without too much trouble. There's a bowl elsewhere in the cabinet, and she fills it with water from the faucet, picking up some clean cloths from a shelf over the sink. She turns back around to find Caine matter-of-factly undoing Stinger's trousers. 

"I'm going to hold him down," Caine says calmly, and even though she's still terrified, she's able to take comfort in his voice, the way he makes it seem like he knows what he's doing. "That stuff," he nods at the white bottle in her hand, "-hurts like hell. Wash him first, then put a thick coat of it over everything, and don't stop, no matter what happens."

"Shouldn't someone-"

"Let's not embarrass him further."

Jupiter nods. "Okay."

She picks up some water and a cloth, sponging his back with it carefully, easing away the blood. Stinger makes a whining noise high in his throat. Jupiter pauses, but keeps going. She can't stop when she's come this far, and this is important. She dunks the cloth in the bowl again and rings it out.

Under the blood, Stinger's back isn't entirely cut: some parts of it are swollen, and other red lines are abrasive, more like a hard rug burn than anything else. She moves lower, brushing raised welts on the backs of his legs. There's little blood here except what dripped down from his back, and she spends less time there.

She squirts some of the white cream in her hand, rubbing it curiously between her fingers. It's vaguely gritty and odorless, with a pearly grey sheen. She looks to Caine for confirmation, who wraps his hands around Stinger's wrists and nods back. She touches it to a cut along Stinger's ribs and he twitches, hissing in pain. She spreads it more gently along the shallower cuts down around his lower back, is careful when rubbing it across the tops of his shoulders. When she smears it across a particularly deep wound near his spine, he thrashes against Caine's hold and lets out another moan.

His back done, she moves lower, running cream-coated fingers along the welts at the backs of his thighs. She tries to keep her touch light, professional, but it's really hard when she's  _touching his ass_ and he keeps making noises that she  _knows_ aren't supposed to sound hot but somehow are anyway. She allows herself to linger just briefly on a particularly bad abrasion, rubbing the ointment in with just a bit too much care, before pulling her hand away. This is not something she's going to pervert, it's  _not_.

The bandages, at least, are easy enough to figure out, and apparently work the same way they do on Earth. At last, Caine gives her another nod, and she washes her hands in the sink, scrubbing the blood out from under her nails and turning the heat up as high as she can stand.

* * *

They take him up to Jupiter's room. It's comfier and more private, and it's less likely that someone will barge in unexpectedly, given royal protocol. By the time they've settled Stinger on Jupiter's bed, he's already asleep, his breathing evening out.

Caine sits on the edge of the bed. He takes one of Stinger's hands in his, examining it with a wince before showing it to her. "He did something to his hands, I think from holding on to the wall."

Jupiter sits beside him and looks closer. The fingers are bruised and his right wrist is swollen. "Ow."

"I bet he thinks it just adds to what he deserves, the bastard," Caine says, without any real heat.

"Why?" Jupiter leans on Caine's shoulder. "I would have given him his wings back without all this."

"There's a motto," Caine says. "For the Skyjackers. _T_ _hough many may fall, all will rise._  There's a bit more about what we're supposed to rise for, honor and glory and duty, but Stinger always told us that it meant we're supposed to keep going, even if it's hard or we're hurt or in pain, because it's for something bigger."

"Okay."

"But in his case," here Caine makes an annoyed sounding  _woof_ , "I think he means that you  _have_ to be hurt, if you want to be worthy of rising."

"That's stupid," Jupiter says flatly.

"I know."

Something about the way he says it - fond, somehow - makes Jupiter sit up and look at him, then at Stinger, then down to Caine's lap. He's still holding Stinger's hand, his thumb moving back and forth across it.

"Uh," she says, not knowing how to ask. "Did you...?"

"We used to-" Caine stops, starts again. "In the Legion, you take what comfort you can. Everyone else already thinks Splices are animals, more instinct than intelligence. If boundaries got crossed, no one really cared."

"So you and Stinger-"

"He took care of me. And then I..." Caine lets out a shaky sigh. "Then I attacked an Entitled, and he stood up for me, and then he said it was the last time he'd do that. We were both angry, though I was more angry at myself and... trying to figure out what had happened, what was wrong with me. We didn't talk, after that, not until I showed up with you."

Jupiter processes this for a minute. "Okay."

"So if you wanted him to join us, I wouldn't mind."

Several things cross Jupiter's mind, among them  _Does 'us' that mean he's gotten over the 'unworthy' thing?_ and  _Holy fuck I do not deserve this guy_ and a series of increasingly graphic imaginings of exactly how Stinger "took care" of Caine, but what comes out of her mouth is, "Oh, God, was I that obvious?"

Caine grins and taps his nose. "Only to me, I think."

"Oh, joy," she says, and dissolves into hysterical giggles. How is this even her life? Then she sobers. "You must think I'm awful."

Caine looks confused. "Why would I think that, your majesty?"

If anything, that makes her feel even worse. "I mean, you have to know that I- that I was getting turned on by- you know. Hurting him. That's just  _wrong_."

Caine shrugs. "Not really. It's not really that uncommon, especially among Entitled. Some even have parties about it."

"But I don't _want_ to be that kind of Entitled. Wouldn't that make me like, like Titus? Or Balem? Enjoying other people's pain?"

Caine shakes his head. "Not if the other person enjoys it, too. And-" He looks down, suddenly embarrassed. "Well, I wasn't joking when I called Stinger masochistic. He said the same thing to me, more than once."

"Oh."  _Well, I don't think I could get more embarrassed. Might as well_. "Does that mean that you both-?"

"Stinger liked it regardless of who was in control," Caine says. "I don't. I'd rather have someone giving me orders. If we ever tried to fight it out, I'd usually surrender."

"Fight it out?"

"If we wanted, and if we weren't actually angry at each other; then, I'd try to win. Of course, the lines could blur occasionally."

"Wait, so, what Kiza said, about... male mating rituals-"

Caine laughs. "Kiza talks too much. Trait she shares with her father."

"Oh my _God_ ," says Jupiter, giggling helplessly. Caine's laugh is deeper, and he wraps an arm around her so she can bury her burning, bright red face in his chest. "Oh my  _God_."

* * *

Stinger wakes up on his side, his head in Caine's lap, Jupiter asleep with her head on Caine's shoulder. Caine, for his part, is holding himself as if he's on watch duty. Perhaps because he hears the change in his breathing, Caine looks down.

"Glad to see you're back among the living, old man."

"And you, as always, have no respect for your elders," says Stinger, twisting his neck as far as he can to look him in the eye.

"How do you feel?"

"Like hell."

"You've got no one but yourself to blame for that," Caine says, with the same kind of firm tone Stinger would expect from a higher-ranked officer.

"When did you become the voice of reason?"

"When I didn't have anybody else to do it for me." A pause. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For hurting you."

"Like you said, I've got no one but myself-"

"No, not that. I mean, before. You threw away your life for me and I didn't even... I'm sorry."

"Well, good to hear it, after all these years," Stinger says, then sighs. He tries to adjust his place on Caine's lap and winces as the muscles in his back burn. "But don't apologize. If anything, I should-"

"I thought the point of this was so that you didn't have to keep apologizing." It's Jupiter, her voice a bit rough with sleep.

It's the gentleness of her voice, the way she looks at him as if she's already forgotten it, that breaks him. He pulls himself upright, hissing in pain, the better to speak directly to her. "Your majesty, I don't deserve this."

"This what?"

"This kindness. I don't know how you can bear to still look at me after what I did."

"I don't-"

"You could have died," Stinger says. "You both almost did. I sent you to Titus knowing that he wasn't to be trusted. You could have _died_ and it would have been _my fault_ -"

Jupiter shushes him, catching his hands in hers. "We didn't. Your back is proof of that. I _hated_ doing that, but I did because I thought it would help you. Are you going to prove me wrong?"

Stinger won't meet her eyes. "No, your majesty."

"Look at me." He lifts his gaze as best he can. "Will you do what I ask you to do?"

"You're my queen, majesty," he says, a trickle of wetness in the corner of his eye.

"Then you're stay right here, and you're going to let me forgive you. Is that understood?"

Stinger nods reluctantly.

"Good." Without warning, her mouth is on his, and he gasps before he even registers that she's kissing him. She lifts her head to look at him. "Was that okay?"

"I don't understand," Stinger says. His lips are tingling.

"I forgive you," Jupiter says. "And so does Caine. And we both think that you," she kisses his swollen fingers, "deserve this. Deserve us. If you'll have us, I mean, I don't want you to feel pressured into anything. This is not a requirement for your pardon, just an added bonus."

Caine kisses him next, and that, Stinger is ready for, is familiar with, understands. It's not exactly like it used to be - the kid didn't use to have that ridiculous beard, for one thing - but it's close enough. When Caine pulls off to look at him, he smiles with a hint of his old cadet swagger. "I've missed that."

Stinger laughs. This whole thing is absurd, almost more than he can handle. "Me, too," he admits.

"Is that a yes?" Jupiter asks. "Because if it is, I have ideas."

"What kind of ideas?" Stinger asks, curious.

"Caine told me... things," she says mysteriously. "About what you used to get up to in the Legion. I think I might want to try some of those things? I mean, after figuring it out and learning how to do it properly and stuff. Nothing faster than what we're all okay with, right?"

Stinger nods before he realizes what he's agreeing to. "I don't know that I- I don't think-"

"Don't think," Jupiter says. "Just tell us if you want this."

It's more than he could hope for. Stinger says, "Yes," and his mouth is almost immediately covered by Jupiter's, and he leans into it until his back twinges and he makes a pained noise through his nose.

"Maybe that's enough for one day," Caine says. He helps Stinger back under the covers, gets in himself. Jupiter sandwiches Caine between the two of them, dropping a kiss into his hair.

"We'll wait until you're healed," Jupiter says. "Consider that the rest of your punishment, having to wait. Then we'll pick up where we left off."

**Author's Note:**

> I am going to hell.


End file.
